No class. Whoop!

 Cutter Ant-Worker and Minima on the Leaf

A beaming light hit me right in the face. I looked at the clock, and it was 6 AM. So of course I did what any rational college boy would do and went back to sleep.

For breakfast: rice and beans, of course. Also there was some dank fruit and other good things. I tasted the Lizano salsa. Everyone seems to love it, but it's just not my sort of taste.

My head is in the clouds. Literally. Every now and then I seriously find myself surrounded by a cloud here in San Luis de Monteverde.

Instead of torture rising professionals with class today, our professors did the much cooler thing. They took us to town. We took some taxis to the nearest town, Santa Elena, about 7 km away from here at UGA Costa Rica. The road to there produced some pretty incredible sights. While there the group just wandered aimlessly around the town looking into tiendas and supermercados after going to the bank to exchange some US currency for colon. I smell bad mom. I need more colon. :) I grabbed a pretty tasty dessert called Tres Leches at the panaderia (bakery). I have no idea what it comprised of but it was like a glorious cake wading in a pond of milk topped by a mountain of whipped cream as chocolate sauce streamed into the milk pond.

 Santa Elena

After Santa Elena, we grabbed some taxis back to the homebase and went on a little hike. The resident naturalist and hiking guide, Kate, had dreds and really loved plants. I learned quite a lot about what was edible and touchable and some keen observations on the nature of a few birds in Costa Rica from her. I plan on trying to grab some birding action probably when another beam of light blinds me tomorrow morning. On the hike a chestnut-mandibled (but in this picture looks keel-billed) toucan put itself before my very own eyes. Here's a picture. It's a far away one but my Olympus tried it's best. And that's all I can ask.

 Toucan Sam

So of course after learning about the incredible birding opportunities here at UGA Costa Rica, I raided the library's ornithology section as any student product of Mr. Sam Pate would do.   I think I'm all set with a Birds of Costa Rica (this book lacks the pictures but has more information than I could ever google) and another book of similar title with short descriptions and vivid illustrations. Chyeah...

It rains here for like 10 minutes incredibly hard; however, most of the time it feels like it's going to rain. So many clouds, I haven't even broke out the sunscreen yet.

Then dinner came about. And somehow I found myself cleaning dishes with the cooking senoritas. I tried my hand at keeping a conversation with them. It went all right for the most part,  but I found myself asking questions like "what is your favorite bird" and other awkward questions. A giddy feeling always overtakes me when I whip out the espanol in conversations. I don't understand it, but I can't wait for the homestay. 2 weeks.

Class tomorrow. I don't think I'll be blogging cause I'll be doing homework sadly, but I'll try to get back to it wen I get the chance and have some fun things to write about. Thank you if you read this and have a great day!